March Break

March Break was exhausting but good.

Nathan spent the week at a camp run by his karate school.  A full day of running around, various games, a little karate and more running around.  I was worried about having him in a full day program.  He's never had one before.  The longest independent activity he does is school, which is still less than 3 hours.  But he took to it like rain to water, having a great time and coming home pleasantly exhausted.

Alex's tutor was enjoying a well-deserved vacation in Mexico, which left me without much for Alex to do.  I arranged for my father to take him out for two mornings so that I could get some work done.  (I've discovered in the past that Alex is too distracting for me to be able to concentrate on work.)  That worked well and my parents even took him out to a hockey game.  He wasn't allowed to ride on the Zamboni but still enjoyed it.

I decided to take advantage of the time to have some fun with Alex.  We don't get a lot of opportunities for one on one without the pressure of schedules and timetables.  We went swimming twice at the local wave pool.  Alex loves the water and would live in a pool if we would let him.  It took him a little while to get comfortable with having me there.  I got a lot of "Thank you, Mommy" which is his polite way of telling me to get lost so he can do what he wants to do.

But eventually he realized that I wasn't trying to herd him or interfere.  I held his floating carpet steady while he knelt on it in the waves and recited short poems from 4 Square.  He went down the waterslide with me, patiently waiting his turn with the other kids.  He was good about not running away while I got towels out of the locker.  Very successful outings.

Our trip to the Museum of Science and Technology was less successful.  Alex loves the digital displays but he hogs them, hitting buttons over and over to stim on the first few seconds of the video.  With dozens of other children trying to use the machines, it quickly became frustrating for him.  The museum got very crowded much faster than I was anticipating, so we left earlier than I'd planned.  I think he still enjoyed it though.  Especially his new school bus from the gift shop.

It's a lot of work keeping an eye on Alex and after awhile, I start feeling like a Bill Cosby routine, repeating the same warnings over and over (don't jump on the couch, megablocks after lunch, eat your food, no food in the kitchen .... and on and on).  But I'm still glad we got the time together.